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Topics: Darts, Luke Littler
Jack Kenmare
With the 2025 World Cup of Darts set to get underway on Thursday, fans of the tournament are being reminded of a significant change to the format that was first introduced ahead of last year's edition.
This year’s World Cup of Darts will see 40 nations going head-to-head at the Eissporthalle in Frankfurt, with group and knockout stages featuring doubles matches throughout the pairs event.
Luke Humphries and Luke Littler will be aiming to secure a record-extending sixth World Cup crown for England, while Jonny Clayton and Gerwyn Price are all set to feature for Wales after guiding their country to a brace of titles in 2020 and 2023.
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Gary Anderson and Peter Wright, meanwhile, have been paired together for two-time winners Scotland, while Josh Rock will form a new-look pairing with Daryl Gurney for fourth seeds Northern Ireland.
As mentioned earlier, doubles matches will be played throughout instead of singles – a new format that was brought in for the 2024 edition.
That's right. Singles matches between individual players, which had been organised since the World Cup began in 2010, have now been removed entirely, meaning all the games in the tournament will be doubles matches.
England will be represented at the tournament by Luke Littler and world number one Luke Humphries, who can't wait to get into the action.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” Humphries told the PDC, two weeks after beating Littler to win the Premier League title. “I know there’s going to be a lot of pressure on us, but we’re really good friends, and if we connect, then we stand a great chance of winning this title.
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“We believe we can win it, and if we perform at our best, it’s going to take something special to stop us!”
Clayton, on the other hand, is convinced that Wales will be able to stop England. “We’re there to try and win the trophy," he said ahead of this month's compeititon. "We’ve done it twice before and we believe we can do it again."
He added: “I don’t care that Luke and Luke are world number one and the world number two. Us Welsh boys are going to stop them. If you want to win trophies you’ve got to beat big names and top players, so we’re ready to go."
As for the other teams involved, Belgium's Mike De Decker will partner with Dimitri Van den Bergh, Martin Schindler and Ricardo Pietreczko will team up for hosts Germany, and William O’Connor and Keane Barry will take part for Republic of Ireland.
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Here is the list in full:
England - Luke Humphries & Luke Littler
Wales - Jonny Clayton & Gerwyn Price
Scotland - Gary Anderson & Peter Wright
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Northern Ireland - Josh Rock & Daryl Gurney
Argentina - Jesus Salate & Victor Guillin
Australia - Damon Heta & Simon Whitlock
Austria - Mensur Suljovic & Rusty-Jake Rodriguez
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Bahrain - Sadeq Mohamed & Hasan Bucheeri
Belgium - Mike De Decker & Dimitri Van den Bergh
Canada - Matt Campbell & Jim Long
China - Xiaochen Zong & Lihao Wen
Chinese Taipei - Pupo Teng-Lieh & An-Sheng Lu
Croatia - Pero Ljubic & Boris Krcmar
Czechia - Karel Sedlacek & Petr Krivka
Denmark - Benjamin Reus & Andreas Hyllgaardhus
Finland - Teemu Harju & Marko Kantele
France - Thibault Tricole & Jacques Labre
Germany - Martin Schindler & Ricardo Pietreczko
Gibraltar - Craig Galliano & Justin Hewitt
Hong Kong - Man Lok Leung & Lok Yin Lee
Hungary - György Jehirszki & Gergely Lakatos
India - Nitin Kumar & Mohan Goel
Italy - Michele Turetta & Massimo Dalla Rosa
Japan - Ryusei Azemoto & Tomoya Goto
Latvia - Madars Razma & Valters Melderis
Lithuania - Darius Labanauskas & Mindaugas Barauskas
Malaysia - Tengku Shah & Tan Jenn Ming
Netherlands - Danny Noppert & Gian van Veen
New Zealand - Haupai Puha & Mark Cleaver
Norway - Cor Dekker & Kent Joran Sivertsen
Philippines - Lourence Ilagan & Paolo Nebrida
Poland - Krzysztof Ratajski & Radek Szaganski
Portugal - Jose de Sousa & Bruno Nascimento
Republic of Ireland - William O'Connor & Keane Barry
Singapore - Paul Lim & Phuay Wei Tan
South Africa - Cameron Carolissen & Devon Petersen
Spain - Daniel Zapata & Ricardo Fernandez
Sweden - Jeffrey de Graaf & Oskar Lukasiak
Switzerland - Stefan Bellmont & Alex Fehlmann
USA - Danny Lauby & Jules van Dongen